Last winter, I was looking at my map of the Wild
Basin area, at the southern end of Rocky Mountain National Park,
for a good snowshoe route. As I looked at the trail to Sandbeach
Lake, it occurred to me that there would probably be a great winter
view of the Continental Divide, Longs Peak, and Mount Meeker from
the summit of Mount Orton
(11,724 ft),
on the west side of the lake.

From the Wild Basin Trailhead, the distance to
Sandbeach Lake is roughly
4.5 miles,
with about
1,970 feet
of elevation gain. Mount Orton stands a little over
1,400 feet
above the lake. The map's topography indicated a slight ridge on
the east slopes that I thought might be the best way up, so I gave
it a try.

Not too unexpectedly, it didn't work out. The high
winds that day completely covered the trail with deep powder snow.
When I finally arrived at the lake, with the blowing snow, I could
barely see across. It would have been stupid to go further (being
out there along wasn't real smart either actually), and with no
view, what was the point; so, I called it a day and went home.

Sunday, December 20th - 2009, a year later, with
better weather, I tried again. This time, I hit the trail at
5:30 A.M.. I made it to Sandbeach Lake by 9 A.M. and took this
picture looking across to the lower east slopes of Mount Orton,
with Copeland Mountain rising to
13,176 feet
further back. The wind had me concerned about the visibility
deteriorating, but at the moment, it was great.

Once I crossed over to the west side of the lake,
the real work began. After a hour of trail breaking up my planned
route in knee to waist deep snow, I had only gained about
500 feet
in elevation when I stopped to get this next shot of the south face
of Mount Meeker
(13,911 ft)
through the trees on the ridge. While I would have prefered firmer
snow conditions, I was still having a good time, so on I went.

Fifteen minutes later, with clouds rolling in from
the northwest
"What a drag!",
I ran (relatively speaking) over to the edge of the ridge to grab
one more quick shot of Mt Meeker. Seeing, for the first time, the
blunt looking pinnacle in the center of the face, I was surprised
to actually find it marked on the map as Dragons Egg Rock.

Pushing on a little further, my GPS registered my
high-point at
10,991 feet.
It was almost 11 A.M. now, and with over 700 feet of vertical gain
still to go, I would not have reached the summit much before 1 P.M..
I had hoped to get back to the trailhead before dark, and with
visibility worsening, I gave it up. I was still hoping that it
might clear up a little for a last photo, so I sat down for some
lunch. After eating half of the
Schlotzskys
sandwich Suzy had bought me the previous evening, I looked down at
my fingers -
there was no pain, there was no
feeling...I had become uncomfortably numb.
For some reason, I now had a song stuck in my head.

As I got up to get some warmth flowing back into my
body, I realized that the clouds had cleared, and I got the final
shot I had been waiting for - a view from the south of Pagoda
Mountain, Longs Peak, and Mount Meeker. Then, I couldn't help
noticing that the slope in front of me was blown nearly free of
snow. I couldn't resist taking this alternate route back down, and
half walking half glacading, I was back to the lake in one third of
the time it took going up. Even though my butt was dragging a
little as I started the three hour hike back out to trailhead, I
was already planning my next trip in. I'm going to get that view
from the summit of Mount Orton one way or another.